Curriculum Vitae and Research Interests

Gunnar Spreen received his Diplom in physics and Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 2004 and 2008, respectively. Thereafter, until July 2012, he worked as a Caltech Postdoctoral Scholar in the Climate, Ocean, and Solid Earth Science Section at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, USA. From August 2012 until July 2015 Gunnar Spreen was employed as permanent research scientist for sea ice remote sensing at the Norwegian Polar Institute, Tromsø, Norway. Since August 2015 he is the head of the junior research group "Remote Sensing of Sea Ice" and since October 2016 the head of the research group "Remote Sensing of Polar Regions" at the University of Bremen, Institute of Environmental Physics.

His main research interests are remote sensing of sea ice properties with focus on monitoring changes of sea ice (extent, mass, and dynamics) and on understanding underlying climate processes in polar regions. Recent research is focused on improving estimates of the sea ice export out of the Arctic Basin combining sonar and satellite data. Conceptually, further work is based on the analysis of sea ice drift in comparison to atmospheric reanalyses, freeboard data from altimetry, and sea ice concentration using passive and active microwave remote sensing. Satellite measurements are validated using ground-based and airborne field observations.

Projects

The following projects are currently worked on in the research group for Remote Sensing of Polar Regions.